Stop the Political Attacks on WCW D.C Volunteers at Howard University

Article by D.C Volunteers on the recent harrassment of World Can’t Wait Organizers at Howard University and Wilson High School.

Today, two teams of youth went into different parts of the city to organize high school and college kids for the State of Emergency protests.  

At Howard University a team of three gathered in the school quad, one dressed in an orange jumpsuit and hood and kneeling below a large picture of Jose Padilla, to protest the Jose Padilla case. After only about ten minutes, the team was approached by campus security and asked to leave. The team walked over to the library, did some work there, and as exiting were again approached by a different campus police officer who told them to leave immediately. They asked if they could at least wait for another organizer who was still in the library, and the officer refused their request, and threatened arrest. As the organizers walked down the street, away from campus, the campus police car followed them for a block. After only a couple more blocks, they were yet again stopped by another campus police officer and urged to leave. They finally regrouped at a McDonald’s across the street from the university and off of the university’s grounds. There, they flyered a bit and made a few contacts. After a short while, they were approached by police officers for the fourth time in the course of a few hours, who demanded that they leave, stop passing out flyers, and claimed that they were ‘not allowed to talk to Howard students.’

Later in the afternoon, the high school team had organized and built for a meeting with Wilson High School students after school at a nearby Starbucks. The organizers approached the school with leaflets and a poster shortly before the students let out. On the way, they were stopped first by the Metro police, who informed them that they could not display a poster that read ‘Bush Step Down!’ in public. By the time they actually reached the school, two D.C. police officers awaited them; in fact, the same two police officers who had stopped them the day before and expressed their ‘disagreements’ with the politics of World Can’t Wait, and accused them of ‘recruiting these kids to do your dirty work.’  For the second day in the row, the two officers proceeded to harass the student volunteers in an attempt to intimidate them into silence.

First, they ordered them to immediately stop handing out flyers on the street, and aggressively threatened them with arrest. The two organizers dispersed, and met up at Starbucks a couple of minutes later. While conducting a meeting of about five or six people, a police car pulled up outside with flashing sirens, and two D.C. police, one in standard uniform, and one trenched in all black, with some sort of badge, came up to the organizers and ordered them to leave the premise, on the grounds that nothing had been purchased. A couple of kids were holding coffees and snacks that they’d bought. The Starbucks employees confirmed that they had no problem with the continuation of the meeting, however, the police persisted. Unsure of what to action to take, the volunteers quickly gathered contacts, and packed up their materials. The kids, full of bold spirit and determination, continued the meeting a block down the street on the sidewalk. The police quickly ordered them to disperse, again threatening arrest.

The recent harassment and threats of arrests by D.C. authorities are political attacks that must be stop and volunteers allowed to organize on Howard Campus.  The ongoing harassment and arrests of World Can’t Wait organizers around the country is a glimpse of future we face under the Bush Regime where dissent and critical thought are established as illegal and treasonous. 

January 13, 2006